| 词组 | either |
| 释义 | either 1. One of the older strictures on the use of either is the objection to its use in the sense of "each." The examples that seem to have started the controversy are biblical: • And the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat king of Judah sat either of them on his throne —2 Chronicles 18:9 (AV), 1611 • ... and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life —Revelation 22:2 (AV), 1611 The discoverer of these "improper" uses (and four or five others) was Bishop Lowth in 1762. From Lowth it was picked up by other grammarians—notably Lindley Murray 1795. Bache 1869 disapproves, as do many commentators in this century (the most recent being Bremner 1980 and an Associated Press publication cited in Harper 1985). But the sense had been recognized in Johnson's 1755 Dictionary, and it had a few defenders (Utter 1916) as well as a few who would tolerate it (Ayres 1881), though preferring each. The OED shows the use as an adjective to go back to King Alfred and as a pronoun to about the year 1000. It is the oldest sense of either. And the opposition of the grammarians appears to have had little effect on writers: Hall 1917 lists forty or so writers from the 19th and early 20th century using this sense of either. Fowler 1926, who had obviously never seen or heard of Hall 1917, decided that the sense was archaic. He was perhaps trying to accommodate both the grammarians' disapproval and the OED evidence, and the OED had much less 19th-century evidence than Hall had found. But Fowler was wrong: • The two men walked one on either side of the cart —James Stephens, The Crock of Gold, 1912 • ... she had a spot of colour in either cheek —Henry James, The American, 1877 Gowers in Fowler 1965 revised the entry to express a preference for each, but he finds either idiomatic. Bernstein 1971 and Harper 1985 find the use acceptable. But what the commentators have not done explicitly is to distinguish the adjective use from the pronoun use. If you look back at the two biblical examples, you will see that either is a pronoun in the first and an adjective in the second. If the first sounds a little strange to you, don't be surprised. The pronoun in this sense has pretty much dropped out of use; Webster's Third marks it archaic. The adjective, however—and it was the adjective that Fowler 1926 called archaic—is still in common use, though it is probably not as common as each. Some examples: • ... a wide boulevard with shade trees along either side —Nancy Milford, Harper's, January 1969 • Poor in comparison with rich relatives on either side — Times Literary Supp., 22 Oct. 1971 • Mary Fitzpatrick, a spokesman, said the debris apparently came down "safely" on either side of the Equator —N. Y. Times, 4 Nov. 1979 • An antique torchère and an ornate Ch'ing Dynasty lacquered screen anchor either end of the room — Anthony Haden-Guest, Architectural Digest, November 1985 • ... a majestic sweep of flesh on either side of a small blunt nose —William Faulkner, Sanctuary, 1931 • ... fragilely bound into the house by French windows at either end —F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, 1925 2. Either of more than two. Now here we have an odd situation. This topic, into which neither is often introduced, is a fairly old one, but the older commentators in our collection—Richard Grant White 1870, Ayres 1881—treat it rather liberally. They find either in relation to more than two to be in use, and both White and Ayres find it a convenient usage that they think will prevail. It is commentators from around the turn of the century on who insist on the limitation to two. Hall 1917 cites writers named Quackenbos ( 1896) and Gen-ung (1900) as insisting, and he catches Genung himself using it of three. Our files show Vizetelly 1906, Hyde 1926, and Jensen 1935 in the absolutist camp; there are many more recent writers who insist on two, right down to Chambers 1985, Bell & Cohn 1981, Fennell 1980, Cook 1985, and Trimmer & McCrimmon 1988, among others. Bernstein 1971 in his discussion of the problem distinguishes between the use of either as a conjunction, and as a pronoun and adjective. (It is one of the striking characteristics of the absolutists that they fail to make such distinctions.) Bernstein observes that when either is a conjunction, use of more than two is not at all uncommon. Our files confirm his observation: • ... the scantiest serious attention from either biographers, scholars, or critics —Edmund Wilson, The Wound and the Bow, 1941 • ... Bleak House is topped either by Pickwick, David Copperfield, or Great Expectations —Alexander Woollcott, letter, 21 Feb. 1941 • ... for in such case the population will either (a) die, (b) migrate, or (c) plunge into economic chaos — Memoirs of Herbert Hoover, 1874-1920, 1951 • Animals are raised and children are either reared or raised or drug up —Bremner 1980 • The majority of his paintings feature either children, fishermen or old people —This England, Autumn 1983 Use of the pronoun for more than two, on the other hand, is fairly uncommon: • Allowing passage in either of four directions —Webster 1909, definition of four-way, adjective • ... beside him was a telephone through which he could communicate with anyone, on either of the three trains —Hector Bolitho, A Century of British Monarchy, 1951 You can see that we have no really recent examples of the pronoun used of three or more, and we have almost none at all of the adjective. You can therefore conclude that either is rarely used of more than two when a pronoun or adjective; but the conjunction is commonly so used. 3. A minor question raised in a few recent handbooks has to do with parallelism in either... or constructions. Some commentators refer to it as misplacement of either. Here's a case in point: • ... there is no record of his having taken a Doctor's degree either at Oxford, Cambridge, or Dublin — William Barclay Squire, in Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 3d ed., 1927 The commentators would prefer that either followed at, or that at be repeated before Cambridge and Dublin. Now there is no question that such a correction would be an improvement in elegance, but the sentence poses no problem of understanding as it is. (The quotation from Alexander Woollcott at section 2 above is a similar example.) We think you should try for the improved parallelism, but it is fair to say that this is not a life-and-death matter. 4. The question of the number of the verb governed by the pronoun either or by nouns or pronouns joined by either... or has been treated by various commentators from Baker 1770 to the present. The result has been an abundance of rules, conditions, and invented examples. But evidence of actual use of either as a subject seems almost to be less common than rules prescribing that usage. The paucity of evidence comes from the fact that either is less frequently used as a pronoun than as a conjunction, adverb, or adjective and that even as a pronoun it appears more often as an object than a subject. (Neither is more generously attested; see the article there.) Bremner 1980 has a compendious summary of the rules that are usually given: • When either is the subject of a clause, it takes a singular verb and singular referents When either and or join singular subjects, the verb is singular.... When either and or join a singular subject and a plural subject, put the plural subject second and make the verb plural When either and or join subjects of different person, make the verb agree with the nearer subject These rules are commonsensical enough, and you will not go wrong if you follow them. But the little evidence we have suggests that there is some deviation from them—mostly on account of notional agreement. Several commentators, such as Longman 1984, Heritage 1982, Copperud 1964, 1970, 1980, Janis 1984, Perrin & Ebbitt 1972, and Evans 1957, recognize this. When the pronoun either is the subject of the verb, we do find singular agreement: • ... Welsh and Irish are closer to each other than either is to English —William W. Heist, Speculum, April 1968 (in Perrin & Ebbitt 1972) And although almost everyone agrees that singular is usual, plural agreement is also attested. Curiously, the OED has 16th and 17th century examples with plural agreement, but apparently none with singular agreement. Plural agreement seems most likely when either is followed by of and a plural noun or pronoun: • ... either of them are enough to drive any man to distraction —Henry Fielding, Tom Jones, 1749 (in Jespersen 1909-49) • ... it was not a subject on which either of them were fond of dwelling —Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility, 1811 (in Jespersen) • Are either of you dining with Stewart to-night? — Edward F. Benson, The Babe, 1911 (in Jespersen) • I personally do not find that either of these critics make my flesh creep —John Wain, New Republic, 28 Jan. 1960 (in Perrin & Ebbitt) It seems likely that plural agreement is more common in spoken than written English in such constructions; even the example in Baker 1770 seems to come from speech. Perrin & Ebbitt 1972 have even found usage that varies from the general either ... or rule that the verb should agree with the nearer subject. But, all things considered, we recommend that you follow the general rule; it is always safe. See notional agreement, notional concord and agreement: indefinite pronouns; see also neither. |
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